Field
Disclosed herein is an apparatus and method to destroy specific covalent bonds or organic molecules of target cells by direct energy transfer from quantized photons, such as multiple lasers, via harmonic resonance cavitation. More particularly, the apparatus and method are useful to destroy under nail fungus.
Description of the Related Art
To date, treatments utilizing medical lasers primarily rely on heat. During treatment, the precisely quantized photon energy produced by the laser is converted into incoherent thermal energy. This thermal energy, heat, is used to destroy a target. There are a number of shortcomings with current laser heat treatments, including (1) the same heat can harm and burn normal healthy human tissue; (2) attenuation depth of the heat transfer cannot be precisely controlled due to multi-layers of different types of tissue in the human body; and (3) thermodynamics dictates that when one form or energy (laser) is transformed to another form of energy (heat via a thermo decoupling process), a significant quantity of the original energy is lost during the transformation.
Due to the losses associated with the laser, to generate heat for the thermo decoupling process, current medical lasers use multi-wattage lasers, such as from about 4 watts to over 120 watts. To place in perspective, in the metal fabrication industry, lasers with wattages of between 10 watts and 100 watts are used to cut thick steel plates.
Laser-to-heat treatments are known to kill toe nail and finger nail fungus (onychomycosis). Exemplary methods and devices are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 8,277,495, “Method and Apparatus for Treating a Diseased Nail,” by Demetriou et al. and United States Patent Application Publication No. US 2011/0178510 A1, “Method and Device to Inactivate and Kill Cells and Organisms That Are Undesirable,” by Cumbie et al. Both U.S. Pat. No. 8,277,495 and US 2011/0178510 A1 are incorporated by reference herein in their entireties.
A normal, healthy, nail plate has between about 25 and 27 layers of dehydrated human skin, keratin. Typically, nail fungi proliferate in a space between the nail plate above and the skin below (nail bed). In order to kill toe nail fungus or finger nail fungus, a medical laser must penetrate the nail plate without harming normal top nail plate layers and then break apart the fungus cell structure without burning nerve endings and skin cells located on the nail bed. Current laser-to-heat treatments are not ideal because: (1) the heat can burn normal nail plate or surrounding skin; (2) attenuation depth, also referred to as therapeutic penetration depth, of heat cannot be controlled effectively because heat loses its kill power effectiveness as different layers are encountered; (3) nail fungus located deeper than the minimum effective threshold of heat power remains untreated (failed to kill the fungus); and (4) because of inefficient conversion of laser photon quantum energy to thermo energy, current medical lasers are rated at between about 4 watts and about 80 watts to kill nail fungus.